Hydrogen fuel is a zero-emission fuel that can be used to power vehicles, machinery, and other electric devices. As there is very little free hydrogen gas, hydrogen is only an energy carrier and not an energy resource like fossil fuels. However, hydrogen can be produced by steam reforming of hydrocarbons, electrolysis, and thermolysis. Today, fossil fuels are the dominant source for hydrogen and can be processed to produce hydrogen via steam reforming. However, these current methods do not represent a sustainable source for free hydrogen and the steam reforming process generates substantial amounts of carbon dioxide, which requires expensive and often impractical solutions and unused to prevent the carbon dioxide release into the atmosphere.
Hydrogen can also be obtained from water via water splitting that can occur by techniques such as electrolysis, chemically assisted electrolysis, radiolysis, photocatalysis, and thermolysis. However the inefficiencies, expensive materials and input energy required for hydrogen production from water an industrial scale has limited their implementation on a large scale. Current methods for splitting water via electrolysis typically require a membrane to separate the hydrogen protons during the water splitting reaction and to specifically allow them to combine with electrons to produce H2 gas. The need of a membrane significantly increases the cost and scalability of the water splitting reactor also referred to herein as an electrolyzer. The electrolyzer should enable to separately produce hydrogen and oxygen in such configuration with avoiding cross-over of product each other. As such, there exists an urgent unmet need to develop improved methods and systems of water splitting for the production of hydrogen gas for hydrogen fuel production.